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This is me

A busy mind in many places. One of my children was asked what I did for a living. The list given includes my main occupation of farming but also goes on to school bus driver, carpentry, furniture making, developer, designer, landscaping, handyman and more. I've traveled in most states of the union (I'm missing two) and several foreign countries. My favorite vacation is a trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. I like to read. Favorite authors include western author Louis L'Amour, science fiction writer Anne McCaffrey and architect Sarah Susanka. I like to sing and am a bass in our local barbershop chorus. In church I also prefer the bass part. My best friend and wife, Karen, and I have 3 children who are all busy and happily building their own lives. We have twin granddaughters born in September 2011 and another granddaughter born in April 2014.

I had a very interesting conversation with a friend of mine today that only reinforced my feeling that we here in the U.S. are very lucky. You see, Noel grew up in The Central African Republic.(CAR) He is worried about the family that he left behind.I’m sure most of you have never heard of The Central African Republic. CAR is in the middle of the African continent just north of the equator. When Africa was carved up by Europe, the French got CAR. The country is rich in resources, but lately short on peace. Despite its current problems, we don’t hear much about it in the news. That may be because it is looking to France for help, and not the U.S.

CAR is in a battleground that has recently been drawn on religious lines. For many years the Moslem and Christian population got along well. Then Moslem fighters who were thrown out of Sudan and Chad came in and started recruiting young Moslems to point out Christian homes and businesses. As more and more Christian’s were killed or chased out matters got worse and worse. Now many are dying, and they are being given “help” from the U.N. The problem is that the U.N. is sending African troops from Moslem nations. That is not making things any better.

That only reinforces to me one of our greatest gifts here in the U.S. We still have a rule of law here. We have police who will help and courts that will uphold your rights. No, we do not always get it right for everyone, but for the vast majority of Americans, Law means something good. Yet we do get it right more often than much of the rest of the world.

Tonight we will go to bed and know that our home and belongings are still ours in the morning. We can travel freely and have plenty of food available in the grocery stores. We can ask a policeman for help and usually get it.

In this new year it is good for all of us to count our blessings, and while you are at it, send up a prayer for peace in places like CAR. Our ancestors came to this land to find opportunity that was being denied them elsewhere. We need to seek justice for those who are being denied justice in the rest of the world, even if they do not speak english, or furnish us with oil.